Shooting at FBI arrest team ends badly for imam

NY Times:

Federal agents on Wednesday fatally shot a man they described as the leader of a violent Sunni Muslim separatist group in Detroit.

The 53-year-old leader, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, was killed in one of three raids conducted in and around the city, in which six followers of his were taken into custody.

Mr. Abdullah, whom the agents were trying to arrest in Dearborn on charges that included illegal possession and sale of firearms and conspiracy to sell stolen goods, refused to surrender and began firing at them from a warehouse, according to a statement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States attorney’s office in Detroit. He was shot in the return fire, the statement said.

Mr. Abdullah, the authorities said, led a faction of a group called the Ummah, meaning the Brotherhood, which advocates the establishment of a separate nation within the United States governed by Islamic laws. He was one of 11 men from Detroit and Ontario whom the authorities had charged with conspiracy to commit federal crimes.

Though none of the men were charged with terrorism, the statement said, “The 11 defendants are members of a group that is alleged to have engaged in violent activity over a period of many years, and known to be armed.”

Seven of those charged, one of whom was already in prison, appeared in the Federal District Court in Detroit after the raids; four had given up without resistance at the warehouse where Mr. Abdullah was shot, the authorities said. Three men remained at large.

A 45-page complaint says that Mr. Abdullah trained his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and sword fighting, and that he directed them to conduct an “offensive jihad” against the United States government and law enforcement.

Mr. Abdullah was the imam of a mosque called Masjid al-Haqq, which was evicted by city officials in January for failure to pay property taxes. During the eviction, the police said, they found two guns and about 40 other weapons in Mr. Abdullah’s apartment. As a felon previously convicted of assault and carrying a concealed weapon, Mr. Abdullah was forbidden to possess firearms.

...

It does not sound like this imam was into the religion of peace branch of Islam. What was he planning on doing with sword fighting? He did not seem to have bombs and IEDs in his repertoire. Maybe that is why they gave him a break on terror charges.